Project>Mono
Bird people
Most narratives about water in the West are about human needs, usually focusing on water supplies for drinking, farming, recreation and industry. These are important topics to be sure, but it’s not not the whole story.
What about talking about how happy water makes us feel when we wade into an icy stream or dive into a cool lake on a hot summer day? Why shouldn’t we write about how the sound and vibration of a big waterfall can give us goosebumps? Where are the stories about how a lake purpled by sunset and ringed by snowcap mountains can nurture your soul?
I guess you could argue that such stories belong in a nature anthology, a romance novel or a fishing magazine, and that they are not “news.” But that’s only because we’ve distanced ourselves from nature to the point that we don’t realize how much we depend on those less tangible values of water for spiritual and mental health, individually, and as communities.
We also tend to ignore the very real needs of other species, which is a big problem, because we’re in the midst of a biodiversity crisis that threatens human existence as we know it. The disruption of rivers, lakes, wetlands and oceans are a big part of the problem.
Scientists warn that we need to dramatically change the way we manage and use resources like water by mid-century. For example, if the decline of pollinating insects isn’t stopped, there is a real threat to food supplies, and it’s not something we can fix with new technology.
What this means is that, not only do we have to stop the disruptions, we have to fix some of the things we’ve broken, or at least get out of the way and let nature heal itself. These concepts must become part of every discussion about water (and other resources) management and use. It’s not enough to just show pretty pictures of a river at the start of a powerpoint. We have to live and breathe this.
One of the places that has a head start on restoration is Mono Lake, a unique and ancient body of saltwater in Eastern California that is really somewhat of inland sea. Almost the entire population of California gulls, a ubiquitous coastal species, nests and breeds on the islands of Mono Lake, and it’s an important stop for many other species making seasonal globe-spanning migrations.
In the late 1970s, the Mono Lake Committee formed because human disruptions of the lake and its tributary streams (by water diversions to Los Angeles) were destroying the ecosystem. They rallied Californians to “Save Mono Lake” with bright blue bumperstickers, t-shirts, fund-raising bike-a-thons and bucket walks.
They wanted to save Mono Lake for the brine shrimp that live in it, for the birds that feed on the brine shrimp, and for people, because we aren’t separate from nature. We’re part of it, and we can’t live without it. Even though we can’t drink its water or catch fish in it, Mono Lake is important for us.
While acknowledging the need for water in Los Angeles, they declared that Mono Lake had a right exist, and eventually went to court to successfully back up that claim with science showing the unique importance of the lake.
When I was an intern with the committee in the mid-1980s, I met the scientists studying birds, bugs, brine shrimp and tufa who decided they wouldn’t just stand by and watch the whole thing die. On early morning birdwatching treks to shoreline wetlands, we’d listen for snipe and warblers and watch for yellow-headed blackbirds swaying and bobbing on thin willow stalks.
Mono Lake Committee co-founder David Gaines often led the forays, and you could feel his heart jump a little bit when he sighted an unexpected or unusual species. His excitement and passion for the birds was infectious.
Once I learned a bit about the ecosystem of the lake, I felt like it was a place where I could watch the miracle of life unfold every day. It made me happy and satisfied to understand my own place in nature a little bit better. It also made me sad and even angry at times that other people couldn’t recognize the same thing.
And that helped fuel my determination to change the last part of that equation, to try and make a difference. Bird people get it, for the most part.
When I returned to Mono Lake in October to report on the restoration of the Mono Basin, I headed to the county park along the northwestern shore of the lake to watch the sunrise and look for birds, a way of nurturing that connection we all have with the rhythm and cycles of nature.
It’s the season for grebes, the somewhat mysterious red-eyed migrants who seem to vanish from the lake in the middle of the night, when only a few people seem to have seen them taking off in great swarms above the full moon. Up to 1 million grebes — the world’s greatest congregation — gather at Mono Lake in late summer and fatten up on brine shrimp before flying south.
As I walked down the boardwalk down to the shore, I met a bearded and baseball hat-clad gentleman with binoculars and camera who said he was there to check on the grebes. After a short conversation, we realized we had a shared history in the Mono Basin.
He introduced himself as Joe Jehl, a name I recognized right away, because he was a biologist hired by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power back in the late 1970s to study the impacts to birds caused by the water diversions, including predation to the nests of the California gulls.
During my time with the Mono Lake Committee, he was sometimes portrayed as one of the “bad guys,” because he was working for the agency that was damaging the lake. Of course, life isn’t that simple, and I later learned that Jehl is a biologist with a passion for birds equal to that of the people who started the Mono Lake Committee.
Joe’s retired now, but he still visits the lake every year, he told me, to check in on the grebes and other species that he’s been track and counting for decades, and as he talked about what he saw on that warm, sun-kissed autumn morning, I realized that he probably loves Mono Lake as much as the biologists I met at the Mono Lake Committee.
It was a reminder to me that, in order to solve some today’s toughest challenges like global warming and the biodiversity crisis, we are going to have to build trust, listen to each other, find new ways to talk about these things and not be afraid to let our hearts guide us sometimes. Usually, the things we do out of love and with passion are things that turn out best.
